1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to a seat configuration, and more specifically to a bicycle seat that provides improved comfort and performance.
2. Background Art
Bicycles continue to be used throughout the world as a means for transportation, recreation, exercise, and competition. Moreover, today's bicycles are often adapted for a specific purpose, such as highspeed road racing, touring, trail riding, and mountain biking. Accordingly, over the course of many years, bicycles have undergone many structural changes that have streamlined the designs and improved efficiency. Unfortunately, although much effort has been expended in improving the designs of bicycles, few improvements have been directed at the bicycle seat that address both comfort and performance.
Conventional bicycle seats or saddles are typically shaped with a seat section for supporting the rider and a forward protruding section to fit between the legs and in the crotch area of the bicycle rider. Because such seats are relatively uncomfortable and tend to abrade the legs of the rider during movement of the legs, efforts in the past have been made to change the various sizes and shapes of seats and to include various types of pads or springs. A more recently identified problem is the recognition that the forward protruding section of the conventional seat design can cause urethral damage and penile numbness, particularly when used continuously over a long period of time. In order to avoid these undesirable side effects which stem from the use of the conventional bicycle seat, efforts have been made to eliminate the "between the leg" forward protruding section in order to shift the support, and consequently pressure, away from the sub-scrotal area.
Numerous attempts to overcome these problems have been made without success due mainly to the fact that designs that eliminate the forward protruding generally result in decreased performance. Performance is particularly sacrificed because designs that eliminate the forward protruding section fail to provide adequate lateral stability for the rider. Specifically, such designs fail to keep the rider from slipping laterally (i.e., side-to-side) as they pedal. Accordingly, while such designs may improve comfort, they fail to provide the needed lateral stability that allows a rider to efficiently pedal the bicycle.
Thus, while such prior art devices provide improvements in the area of comfort, there still exists a great need to provide a bicycle seat that provides improved comfort and performance for the rider.